Twitter, Two Days Of:

• Just One Word On Facebook Helped Wired Figure Out Who Took The Protoype iPhone by @jwyarow http://bit.ly/aQYlWt
• Utah Fans Concerned As Jazz Break Huddle By Shouting ‘Kill The Mormons’ http://onion.com/b1L5al
• 10 Reasons To Delete Your Facebook Account http://bit.ly/9P08qP
• “YouTube to Let Users Charge Rental Fees for Videos” http://bit.ly/bF7wIu
• Don’t miss Dave Cole from the team talk abt open source principles behind @WhiteHouse.gov http://bit.ly/cb9Zx0 #drupal #gov20
• Greece has a day without TV, papers, flights, schools, doctors http://bit.ly/98Ejd7
• Hospitals Sponsor a Mommy Blog for the Merrimack Valley http://ow.ly/1GScT #mommyblog #mom #hospital #healthcare #hcmktg
• A new map of childhood obesity in the U.S. http://lat.ms/du8wyk RT @LATimeshealth
• Fallows: New York’s “emotional and social response” to terror is what America’s should be. @theatlantic http://bit.ly/9f3n0N
• Facebook up 69%, Twitter up 45%. Global users now average 6 social hours a month http://j.mp/cYGcbB
• Chile’s wired classrooms. #teachtheworld http://ht.ly/1GNVP
• Despite Cambridge City Council ban, surveillance cameras remain http://bit.ly/9KtkS4
• Street View trike hits Melbourne, and The Age was there … http://bit.ly/cAlal5
• German postman marries obese & asthmatic cat before it dies. “We cuddle all the time,” he says http://ow.ly/1H6YD
• This is a cool story about Canadian soldiers and stray dogs in Afghanistan: http://bit.ly/bPsYqr

Attention Boston/Somerville/Cambridge Residents:

Weatherization Barnraising

Saturday, April 10th
12:30-5:00 p.m.

Cambridge YWCA Emergency Family Shelter
3 Bigelow Street, Cambridge

Pitch in to help 10 homeless families who live at the shelter
Lower vast energy bills for the shelter so it can help the families more
Learn skills that can save you $$ at home
Fight climate change
Share food & celebrate after a job well done
No skills necessary - training on the job!!

Work includes:

• An easy and cheap way to fix old vinyl replacement windows so they easily close again
• Air-sealing an incredibly leaky attic
• Using caulk and sprayfoam to stop air leaks
• Saving water and electricity
• Installing programmable thermostats
• Masonry, plastering, and more

Sign up today by web, email or phone!!

www.heetma.com
heet.cambridge@gmail.com
617-491-6761

Organized by HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team), a Cambridge-based
co-op that brings neighbors together to weatherize our homes
and take the energy future into our own hands.
Co-sponsored by Cambridge Energy Alliance

(via Blue Mass Group.)

The Foreign Secretary finished his remarks a little while ago, and — skipping past audience questions, as forums at the JFK Library have had the effect of cultivating that habit — here are a few notes I jotted down.

He is the first British cabinet secretary to visit MIT since Winston Churchill in 1949. His talk was on ‘how to win the war in Afghanistan’ and re-iterated his push for a diplomatic solution.

He noted the historical parallels between Britain and Russia both concluding — in the 1920’s and 1980’s, respectively — that a political solution with external subsidies was the way to go, though it was the elimination of external subsidies that fueled destabilization.

(If you want to read more thorough accounts of it — and the history of Afghanistan in general — go check out this blog by Adam Curtis or the book After the Taliban by Neamatollah Nojumi, Dyan Mazurana, and Elizabeth Stites.)

He says that the Afghans are tired of decades fighting, that a recent poll suggests that only 6% of the population wants the Taliban back, that 5 million refugees have returned to the country (though security is still a high concern — compare that to the recent Iraqi election), and that the army is currently 100,000 strong and is expected to grow by 1/3 by the end of December of this year.

Current education levels place 7,000,000 children in school, 1/3 of them girls.

95% of the population sees corruption as a problem, each Afghan paying up to $100 a year to corrupt officials.

“The Great Consultation” — aimed at kick-starting the ‘reconciliation’/re-integration process in the country — starts on April 29th, and the secretary had four recommendations.

1. Make arrangements to ensure that provincial groups have a greater say in the political process.

2. Empower provincial/district governors.

3. There should be a new dispensation between Parliament and the President to encourage a greater degree of give-and-take and foster a constructive opposition.

4. Tackle corruption. Tackle corruption. Tackle corruption.

Late update: an editorial from The Guardian. The Globe’s coverage.

The Times looks at the Afghan tribes.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary is going to be giving a lecture on Afghanistan at MIT today at 3:30.